Picking the grapes

The Port Harvest

25 - 27 September 2009

This tour is a great Arblaster & Clarke original. Witness and take part in the Port harvest with the unique opportunity to experience treading the grapes! (Treading the Port grapes is not a thing that is done for tourists, it is how the greatest Ports are made).

On the first evening we visit the lodge of Grahams Port for a tasting of these famously lush and juicy ports. This is followed by a private invitation to dine as guests at their lodge.

Next day we go up to the Port wine vineyards up the beautiful Douro valley. We make the journey by the local train which makes its way through the hills before snaking along next to the river. It’s traditional to toast the Douro with a glass of Port when the vineyards come in sight. (Well it will be mid morning by this time). The journey was made famous by Michael Palin as one of his “Great Railway Journeys’ but it has been an iconic thing to do in travel for a very long time. Several of us in the office have done this journey many times, and the first sight of the Douro is just as exciting every time we see it.

In the Douro we visit two of the cutting edge Douro table wine and Port producers. Both are members of the informal association of about five small, rising star producers known as ‘The Douro boys’.

We arrive in Pinhoa, in the heart of the Classic Cima Corgo sub-region and from here we go first we go to the Dutch family owned firm of Niepoort. They are perhaps the ultimate craft Port lodge, famed especially for their superb old tawny and colheita (dated tawny) ports, the product of long ageing in barrel and careful blending and selection in their cellars down in Vila Nova de Guia. We’ll see that Niepoort’s success is also based on their traditonal treading of the grapes, great winemaking and before that attention to the vineyard.

We then continue up the Pinhoa River side valley to the lovely Quinta do Passadouro. Here we are invited for a harvest lunch. If the weather is very fine this will be at tables on their lawn with its superb views over the vineyards and valley. Quinta do Passadouro which used to be commercialised as a ‘single quinta’ (single estate) by Niepoort, don’t make any tawny style at all, only LBV and vintage, plus table wines.

Both these two quintas crush their entire harvest by foot, and if you wish, you too can join in the treading! – Just be sure that you never want to wear these clothes again and that you don’t mind having dark red legs for a few days!

Niepoort, long renowned for their ports, also produce a range of superb Douro table wines including without doubt the best white wines made in the Douro. At Passadouro, George Borges the winemaker is a specialist in table wines and his Passadouro reds are superb. He is also behind the superb ‘Pintas’ table wine which he makes with his wife, (another of the Douro ‘boys’). So, on this trip you will also taste several excellent tables wines, not just Port.

After lunch we make our way back down to Porto, perhaps enjoying a glass of Douro Moscatel or something else rather interesting on the journey. The evening is free. There are many interesting restaurants in Porto, especially down by the Ribeira. You may join the Wine Guide at one of the best of these if you wish.

The last day in Oporto is unescorted, but you can join in on a special tasting at Calem Port in Vila Nova de Gaia over the river from Oporto, where the Port lodges are based.

We stay in a good 3* hotel in the centre of Oporto, within easy walking distance of the river front (Ribera) with its many restaurants. This is a very unusual and special weekend, everyone who is interested in wine should see the Port vintage once.